Whether you are an Early Childhood Educator in Guam—or an educator in the Pacific region or in the continental US, or elsewhere—it has always been important to recognize the need to support a child’s emotional well-being and to help them learn the tools for self-regulation. Now, however, due to the additional challenges of COVID-19 and the uptick in stress that our current situation has placed upon us, we also require a deeper understanding of our adult upsets! Conscious Discipline has always been an adult-first process. Our ability to manage our own upsets allows us to be steady enough to offer supportive strategies to our children. This training can be the beginning stages to helping school districts to strive for a process that helps ECE educators with tools that will develop well-balanced children and that meet their social and emotional needs.
Many may believe that shifting from the online/hybrid modality to the in-person modality was a simple process, but it did come with a struggle. What used to be a click away in pressing the Zoom link became the logistics of preparing for a venue, ensuring that the safety protocols were met such as the availability of hand sanitizers and a 3-foot distancing rule for participants, handouts in hardcopy as opposed to electronic form, and moving from a 2-hour training to a 7-hour session. But this is what we were all waiting for—facilitating and engaging with high-quality in-person sessions in the familiar pre-COVID-19 contexts.
For further information on this project, please contact Eloise R. Sanchez, Senior Program Specialist in Social-Emotional Learning and Early Learning Programs at Pacific Resources for Education and Learning (sancheze@prel.org or 671.687.5202).